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“Oh, my God, yes!” Donnie said, rolling his eyes. “We have to guard that stuff like it’s Fort Knox. And it’s not just copper, it’s every damn thing. Can’t hardly leave anything on a jobsite, and the Bayou Breaux PD…Don’t get me started on them! They’re a goddamn clown show. My warehouse is in the city limits, you know. Next to over where they store the Mardi Gras floats.
“We hired private security,” he said. “It was the only thing to do. Drives costs up, but so do thieves. And still we lose materials. All the time. That’s the world we live in, sad to say.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve got somebody inside stealing from you.”
Donnie sighed. “I hate to think it. I’m good to my people. Most of them have worked for me for a good long while. That’s saying something in this business.”
“Those materials are insured, yeah?” Nick asked. “You get reimbursed, or you get to write off the loss at least, right?”
Donnie gave him a perturbed look. “Are you gonna accuse me of insurance fraud?”
“No,” Nick said. “Some people don’t think of it as stealing if the owner gets compensated for the loss. That’s how to rationalize stealing from people who trust you.”
“That doesn’t really comfort me,” Donnie said. “I want to think better of my fellow man. This just pisses on my optimism.”
“You know what they say, Donnie,” Nick said, pulling a business card from his pocket. “You want loyalty, get yourself a dog.”
He held up the card and placed it on the desk. “You call me directly the next time it happens.”
Donnie arched a brow. “What about the town cops?”
“Fuck ’em.”
Donnie laughed. “You’re the dog in this story! I’ll hold you to it. Who would’a guessed we’d be having this conversation all these years down the road? Life is a kick in the head, man!”
“C’est vrai,” Nick conceded. “That’s for true.
“Talking about Sacred Heart boys,” he said. “Have you seen Robbie Fontenot lately?”
“Robbie?” Donnie sighed. “Now, there’s a sad story. I had heard he was back in town, and then I saw him Halloween night as well.”
“With Marc and Dozer?”
“No. They don’t run together that I know of,” Donnie said. “I imagine on account of what happened.”
“Because of Robbie’s drug use?”
“I reckon it goes back to when Robbie blew out his knee. I was actually there when it happened. A lot of people used to show up to watch their practices then because, I’ll tell you what, Robbie Fontenot was the real deal. That was gonna be his year. He was being courted by every college in the Southeastern Conference, and plenty others. They wanted him at Alabama, but I think he was leaning toward LSU. His daddy was an LSU alumnus. But shit happens. You know, it’s a rough sport with big, strong young men. Even then, Dozer weighed 350 pounds if he weighed an ounce. He fell into Robbie on a play and down they went. Robbie didn’t get back up. That’d be like having a small elephant fall on you.
“It was just an unfortunate accident, but I don’t think anything was the same with any of them after that. Marc took over asquarterback and the team still went on to win the state championship, but Robbie was gone, in more ways than one. Dozer—I think that’s still at the heart of his problems, truth to tell. He never has forgiven himself. You gotta do that if you’re gonna move on,” he said. “I’ve told him. That’s part of the twelve steps: admit your mistakes and make amends. He can’t bring himself to do it. I think there’s a lot of shame and guilt at the heart of that, and that’s a shame in itself.”
“Life is a journey,” Nick said, thinking of the conversation he’d had with Annie the night before. “We can’t make it for someone else.”
“Nope,” Donnie said, shaking his head. “It’s hard to watch people struggle, though. I think of what a shit show I was back in the day. My poor family, having to watch me drive my life off a cliff.”
It was hard to reconcile the Donnie Nick had known back then with the man before him now. Despite his many faults, Donnie had always had a certain likable quality about him, with his good looks and self-deprecating humor, but Nick would never have imagined the man he knew then possessing the inner strength to turn himself around.
Every once in a great while, people were surprising in a good way.
“So, you saw Robbie Fontenot on Halloween night,” he said, turning back to the matter at hand. “About what time was that?”
“Must have been around ten. I couldn’t swear to it, though. We were busy.”
“Was he with anybody?”
“He was talking to some town cop.”
“Really?” Nick asked. “What’d that look like? Like he was in trouble?”
